The First Sentient Life in the Galaxy

One of my favorite quotes of all time is this one from The Fountainhead:

“You’ve never felt how small you were when looking at the ocean.”

He laughed. “Never. Nor looking at the planets. Nor at mountain peaks. Nor at the Grand Canyon. Why should I? When I look at the ocean, I feel the greatness of man. I think of man’s magnificent capacity that created this ship to conquer all that senseless space. When I look at mountain peaks, I think of tunnels and dynamite. When I look at the planets, I think of airplanes.”

A while back I wrote this article where I put forth the distinct possibility, at least to me, that simulation hypothesis is accurate, in that we might actually be all a part of some unfathomably advanced simulation of some kind. In my opinion, simulation hypothesis is the only thing that explains everything, including the many areas of the universe we don’t understand and can not make any sense of, from quantum physics to astronomy.

I don’t “believe” in simulation hypothesis, I just lean in that direction more than I lean in any religious direction or “there absolutely is no god,” neither of which make any sense to me. I really have no idea, and I’m the first to point out that there are many holes in the simulation hypothesis.

One of the odd things I pointed out in the last article is the weird fact that we have not heard one tiny peep of any communication of any kind on any wavelength from anywhere in our vast part of the galaxy from any other forms of life, despite the fact it only took human beings the ability to develop radio wave technology within just 5,000 years of civilization even though the universe is 13 billion years old. Given these figures, mathematically speaking there should be literally thousands, if not millions of other civilizations that developed as fast as we did in a galaxy that old and vast that we should be hearing from. Yet the entire night sky is… completely quiet.

It just doesn’t make any sense. Not to me anyway.

There is a second explanation for this besides the theory that we live in a simulation, and this explanation is equally odd and interesting. That is, we don’t live in a simulation and this is all real, but we are literally the first form of life to evolve to sentience in the entire Milky Way galaxy. Isaac Asimov’s fantastic Foundation series of novels puts forth this premise; that humans are the first, and thus only sentient form of life in the the galaxy, and his novels take place in a distant future where humans have colonized the entire galaxy… and it’s just humans, no aliens like on Star Trek or Star Wars.

My first thought when hearing this theory, and the biggest objection to this theory, is that the odds of us being the first creatures in the galaxy to achieve sentience and technology are astronomically small.

People who defend this theory say that it’s true, the odds are astronomically small. But they also argue that the odds of human beings existing anywhere at all are also astronomically small, therefore assuming that humans are the first form of intelligent life in the galaxy is not as far-fetched as things might seem.

I find this utterly fascinating. I don’t personally believe it, but the argument is thought provoking.

What if we were the first (or only) intelligent form of life in the entire Milky Way galaxy? Does that make you feel lonely, or really, really important?

It makes me feel not only important, but important on literally a galactic scale.

For example, if we were one of millions of types of intelligent aliens living in the galaxy, and we humans were stupid and nuked our own planet and wiped ourselves out, that would be horrible for you and me, but on a galactic scale, it wouldn’t matter at all.

But.. if we were the only (or first) form of intelligent life in the galaxy and we quickly (in terms of astronomical and historical terms) wiped ourselves out because we were stupid, that would be a tragedy of literally galactic proportions.

If we were the only form of intelligent life in the galaxy and we destroyed ourselves, we would literally doom our entire galaxy to perhaps billions of years of desolation. If you’re a nihilist, you probably don’t care, but the thought of that makes me a little sad.

If we were not the only form of intelligent life in the galaxy, but we were the first to achieve technology, if we destroyed ourselves, or somehow oppressed or regressed ourselves to the point where we never left our planet, that would be even worse. If we’re the first, we could literally colonize and rule the entire galaxy, either ruling (if we were assholes) or kindly shepherding (if we were intelligent and benevolent) the other, less evolved races in the galaxy so they could achieve greatness and peace faster than they could without us.

That leads into the second aspect of this. If we were the first, or even one of the first, and we went out into the galaxy Star Trek style and met other less evolved, less advanced races, how would we treat them?

Hmmmm.

Everyone likes to think we’d be kind and benevolent like Starfleet, but I don’t think so. I think we’d be much more close to how humans were portrayed in Avatar. We wouldn’t be the Evil Businessman™ trope or the Angry Army General™ trope often portrayed left-wing movies like that, in that we wouldn’t kill, oppress, or outright destroy lesser aliens. Maybe. But it’s quite likely we would just waltz right in and take their resources without asking them, perhaps at best trying to relocate them before we did so. Again, maybe.

Even considering the possibility that we are the only or first aliens in the galaxy to achieve a decent level of civilization and technology really gives one pause. At least it does for me. As I’ve analyzed before, even though I’m very pessimistic about the future of Western Civilization (it’s pretty much fucked at this point no matter what we do or who we elect), I am very optimistic about the long-term future of humanity. I think humanity is poised for really great things over the next 100 years or so. If this is all a simulation, it will be fun, but if instead we are the only or first beings in the galaxy, then what we do will literally affect perhaps millions of worlds across our galaxy.

Maybe there are other sentient life forms in our galaxy who are just following a policy similar to the prime directive and just leaving us alone so we can evolve on our own.

Also, as civilized humans encountered hunter-gatherers diseases that originated from domesticated animals wiped out way more people than warfare. If we were to encounter other less technological advanced humanoids in our galaxy its likely deadly pandemics would reek havoc on their populations. And if they had domesticated animals their diseases would likely reek havoc on us.

Because they believe in supernatural bullshit so their “explanations” are wrong.

Atheists can’t explain it.

Nor do they want to or seek to explain it. Atheists don’t believe in supernatural bullshit. Period. That’s it. There’s nothing else to say about them.

Scientists can’t explain it.

… yet. Science knows what it knows.

But simulation hypothesis might.

Yeah. It might, but simulation is too close to “there is a God” but said in a non religious way. Which means that, like God, simulation is just a trump card to justify the existence of reality whenever we encounter something we don’t understand how it works.

So it’s not very useful. We better let science keep going with their investigations. So far, it’s been great for us in many ways.

One of the odd things I pointed out in the last article is the weird fact that we have not heard one tiny peep of any communication of any kind on any wavelength from anywhere in our vast part of the galaxy from any other forms of life, despite the fact it only took human beings the ability to develop radio wave technology within just 5,000 years of civilization even though the universe is 13 billion years old. Given these figures, mathematically speaking there should be literally thousands, if not millions of other civilizations that developed as fast as we did in a galaxy that old and vast that we should be hearing from. Yet the entire night sky is… completely quiet.

Let’s make a distinction between “our galaxy” and “the rest of the universe” and between “5k years” and “13 billion”. Because the difference is ridiculously huge.

We could be the only sentient beings in our galaxy? Yes. But think about it: our galaxy is 100k-180k light years wide. We developed radio technology about 100-150 years ago. This, in terms of our own galaxy size + the speed of light, is just an instant. In terms of the entire universe, is less than nothing. Our waves have just reached nearby stars.

If there’s a few civilizations in our galaxy that emit radio waves, those could still be thousands of years away from our planet and that’s only if those waves point to us and if they don’t have to travel through the galaxy center or any other obstacle. Very, very difficult.

Now imagine all this not in a galactic but in a universal scale.

And don’t forget that our physics skills and knowledge have just begun. There are probably other ways of sending information a part from electromagnetic waves (quantum phenomena we still don’t know/understand/know how to use?) that for us is completely undetectable. We could be surrounded by information we can not detect the same way a few instants ago we couldn’t detect or emit radio waves.

There’s another great theory put forth in the three-body trilogy, a chinese sci fi epic, which I highly recommend. It spoils the second book, so stop reading here, but his theory is that the universe is actually extremely populated, but it’s like the jungle or the deep sea where every creature’s main way to survive is by staying hidden because there is always a bigger creature out there searching for any signs of life to snuff it out either in defense or for the resources.

My objection to both the simulation hypothesis and the idea that we’re first is more or less the same: they’re not self-sustaining Fermi paradox solutions, they’re hypotheses that require an explanation themselves. If we’re first, then life or at least high tech life must be incredibly rare (even rarer than one might first think; the channel I point to at the end of my comment explains this well); why is that? If we’re in a simulation, that merely moves the problem (a bit like panspermia theory) instead of solving it: such and such aspect of reality is weird and so far unexplained by science, so God, oops I mean the simulators did it.

It is already amazing that biological brains can do science at all (ie infer characteristics of the universe through empiricism, universal laws,…); at first glance there is no physical necessity that dictates this. Therefore, it is hardly a surprise at all that certain aspects of our reality puzzle us or even insult our common sense. To me this is more than enough reason to not revolt at the strangeness of quantum mechanics; in fact, I would consider it expectable that the deeper we go into the fabric of reality, the closer we get to weird aspects of it that our brains never evolved to make sense of in the first place. So I don’t need the Simulation Hypothesis to ease my mind of the discomfort caused by Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle, or the ‘granularity’ of reality, or quantum tunneling, etc. I admit I have more trouble accepting “a universe from nothing”, I find a beginning-less first cause (which can be anything and doesn’t have to be a deity at all) or “turtles all the way down” more palatable.

If we’re first, I too am very enthusiastic about colonizing the galaxy or even more. Determine some kind of policy to decide which places can be exploited/terraformed, which should be left untouched for “visual tourism” or whatever one might call the conservation of pristine natural habitats, and which lifeforms should be contacted/assisted or left alone, etc. I don’t trust my chances, but I find it at least conceivable that technological progress could allow me to witness those days.

Maybe there are other sentient life forms in our galaxy who are just following a policy similar to the prime directive and just leaving us alone so we can evolve on our own.

I’ve heard that argument and I don’t buy it, because that would mean that 100% of all of them (or close to it) would just happen to all follow this directive, and on their own. Unlikely.

If we were to encounter other less technological advanced humanoids in our galaxy its likely deadly pandemics would reek havoc on their populations. And if they had domesticated animals their diseases would likely reek havoc on us.

Yes, very accurate.

Nor do they want to or seek to explain it. Atheists don’t believe in supernatural bullshit. Period. That’s it. There’s nothing else to say about them.

Incorrect.

1. Some atheists don’t seek to explain it, the more calm ones. But the more hardcore atheists who say definitively that there is NO god and NO intelligent design whatsoever have at least some obligation to put forth their own theories or explanations… and they can’t. They have no fuckin’ idea just like the rest of us.

2. The true nature of the universe is not “supernatural bullshit.” It’s facts and hard science. That’s what I’m talking about here, not god or Jesus or any of that crap.

Let’s make a distinction between “our galaxy” and “the rest of the universe”

I did. I’m only talking about our galaxy here.

But think about it: our galaxy is 100k-180k light years wide. We developed radio technology about 100-150 years ago. This, in terms of our own galaxy size + the speed of light, is just an instant.

Right, that’s exactly my point. That means there should be literally thousands or even millions of other radio capable civilizations in our galaxy right now.

If there’s a few civilizations in our galaxy that emit radio waves, those could still be thousands of years away from our planet and that’s only if those waves point to us and if they don’t have to travel through the galaxy center or any other obstacle. Very, very difficult.

True; that’s a valid argument.

If we’re in a simulation, that merely moves the problem (a bit like panspermia theory) instead of solving it

True; simulation hypothesis doesn’t actually explain the greater nature of existence, just the nature of our existence. But that doesn’t make it invalid, and I would be happy to know more about the nature of our existence if I can’t know the nature of “real” existence beyond that.

I admit I have more trouble accepting “a universe from nothing”

That’s my issue. With all the complexity you describe, an ultracomplex universe “from nothing” makes absolutely no sense to me. Intelligent design by a creator or creators makes more sense. BUT! I completely admit that a universe from nothing is entirely possible. As Ayn Rand once said, “How do you know we live in an orderly universe? How many other you universes do you know of you can use as a basis for comparison?”

1. Some atheists don’t seek to explain it, the more calm ones. But the more hardcore atheists who say definitively that there is NO god and NO intelligent design whatsoever have at least some obligation to put forth their own theories or explanations… and they can’t. They have no fuckin’ idea just like the rest of us.

Of course they can’t explain it and of course they have no obligation whatsoever to justify why they say “no”. There’s no clue, no proof, no hint, no trace and especially no need at all that supernatural beings exist nor that there’s any kind of intelligent design to mold reality.

Therefore, the ones that claim that some of this stuff exist or could exist are the ones with some or a lot of obligation to explain it. It doesn’t make sense to make someone proove the non-existence of something.

That’s a logical fallacy I usually encounter with, precisely, people with faith in religions. “- Proove that God does not exist”. Uh.. no. It’s the opposite. “- You believe that God does not exist and you believe that it doesn’t. We both have our faiths.”. Uhh… no, you believe, I don’t believe. Period. It’s completely different.

Therefore #2, an atheist can say without any problem that there’s no God or no intelligent design the same way it can be claimed that Gandalf does not exist or that there’s no PlayStation 4 orbiting Jupiter.

2. The true nature of the universe is not “supernatural bullshit.” It’s facts and hard science. That’s what I’m talking about here, not god or Jesus or any of that crap.

Agreed 100%. That why I stick with science.

Review your last paragraph. No intelligent design makes no sense to you. I understand why, because to me it is difficult too. I thought exactly the same way as you do a few years back. “A clock needs a clockmaker”. That’s why people have believed in religion for centuries. Because yes, it actually makes more sense to us.

But think about it this way: reality owns us nothing, let alone making sense.

Of course they can’t explain it and of course they have no obligation whatsoever to justify why they say “no”.

That depends on how they say it. Example 1:

Atheist: I don’t think there’s a god.

Other person: How was the universe created then?

Atheist: I really have no idea.

That’s okay. I’m talking about this example:

Atheist: There is NO god and NO intelligent design, period, end of story, and if you think there is, you’re an IDIOT!!!

Other person: How was the universe created then?

Atheist: Don’t ask me! How am I supposed to know?

That’s bullshit. If you’re that sure of a particular condition you can’t use the “I don’t know” excuse when I start asking you questions regarding your viewpoint.

the ones that claim that some of this stuff exist or could exist are the ones with some or a lot of obligation to explain it.

Of course I agree. I think religionists are even worse than atheists. But that doesn’t mean the hardcore atheists don’t have some problems of their own.

No intelligent design makes no sense to you. I understand why, because to me it is difficult too. I thought exactly the same way as you do a few years back. “A clock needs a clockmaker”. That’s why people have believed in religion for centuries. Because yes, it actually makes more sense to us. But think about it this way: reality owns us nothing, let alone making sense

I agree 100%. That’s why both unlike relgionists and the “I’m sure” hardcore atheists, I’m willing to admit that I just don’t know.

There’s another great theory put forth in the three-body trilogy, a chinese sci fi epic, which I highly recommend. It spoils the second book, so stop reading here, but his theory is that the universe is actually extremely populated, but it’s like the jungle or the deep sea where every creature’s main way to survive is by staying hidden because there is always a bigger creature out there searching for any signs of life to snuff it out either in defense or for the resources.

I second this, I love love love that series. Truly fantastic. I would particularly recommend the audbile version for the excellent reading and the proper pronunciation of Chinese stuff. Aside from being amazing, it explores the question of interstellar silence very thoroughly.

Another hypothesis as to why we don’t see aliens is that at some point, and advanced alien civilization loses interest in the “material” world and instead develops some kind of technology where they transfer they minds into perpetually running computer simulations, in order to live forever.

Which means, of course, that we may be those higher beings, and we are actually running in a simulation 😉

Like Steven says, there are plenty of people who claim to have had supernatural experiences. Like the kind of people that say claim that “shadow people” are real. But the claims of these kind of people are usually dismished as halucinations or lies. I actually think there might be some substance to it.

There’s a limit to how far a radio wave (or any kind of wave) can carry useful information. Once the amount of power in a transmission is spread out via the inverse square law to the point where it’s no more than the background heat of the universe, it’s impossible to distinguish it from noise. As in “second law of thermodynamics” impossible. The practical limit is far less than this. Sending a very narrow, focused signal can counteract this, but it only buys you an incremental improvement.

Aliens aren’t going to pick up “I Love Lucy” by scanning the sky. If we knew *exactly* where they were, we could perhaps point a maser in their direction and they could point one at us in reply… but that’s the whole problem. We don’t know where they are.

I don’t know why you think they cannot explain it? Or in fact what you think we do not understand?

ne of the odd things I pointed out in the last article is the weird fact that we have not heard one tiny peep of any communication of any kind on any wavelength from anywhere in our vast part of the galaxy from any other forms of life, despite the fact it only took human beings the ability to develop radio wave technology within just 5,000 years of civilization even though the universe is 13 billion years old. Given these figures, mathematically speaking there should be literally thousands, if not millions of other civilizations that developed as fast as we did in a galaxy that old and vast that we should be hearing from. Yet the entire night sky is… completely quiet.

Keep in mind the distances, and the signal goes down in strength exponentially over distance. There have been actually some strange signals in the past. But mathematically yes it is very likely there is life elsewhere in the galaxy but its still very rare mathematically so its likely its somewhere far away and due to distance and interference we might never get the signals. Furthermore the more you go far in space you are looking back in time due to speed of light limitation so if you are looking at distant stars or even galaxies you are getting signals from thousands or millions of years from the past, so you are getting signals from that time period, not from the present.

Never the less there are some famous statements like “where is everyone”? It gets kinda creepy when you read on that because of many theories as to why that might be, many of which aren’t so optimistic.

That is, we don’t live in a simulation and this is all real, but we are literally the first form of life to evolve to sentience in the entire Milky Way galaxy.

That is possible but very unlikely mathematically. Furthermore there is some fleeting suggestion there have been other civilization(s) here in solar system previously. You see the other thing about time and space is that civilizations come and go and to meet at the same place is unlikely but to also meet at the same time period even less likely. Perhaps there was other civilization here before but they are long gone. If you for example believe the moon is artificial and was brought here by other civilization it would be so long ago they would almost certainly be long gone – either dead or far far away in space, and if they would still be alive they would probably be so advanced by now that they would be like gods to us (their actions would be indistinguishable from natural phenomena).

People who defend this theory say that it’s true, the odds are astronomically small. But they also argue that the odds of human beings existing anywhere at all are also astronomically small, therefore assuming that humans are the first form of intelligent life in the galaxy is not as far-fetched as things might seem.

There is the Athropic Principle, which says that rather than its strange we have such right conditions here the fact we are here and not somewhere else is precisely because these conditions are here. Its a way of looking it and its considered the standard way of thinking in Astrophysics. Based on this not strange at all we are here.

We wouldn’t be the Evil Businessman™ trope or the Angry Army General™ trope often portrayed left-wing movies like that, in that we wouldn’t kill, oppress, or outright destroy lesser aliens.

Why is it that such stuff is portrayed in left wing movies as bad? I thought left wingers were pro corporatism exploitation.

That’s my issue. With all the complexity you describe, an ultracomplex universe “from nothing” makes absolutely no sense to me. Intelligent design by a creator or creators makes more sense. BUT! I completely admit that a universe from nothing is entirely possible. As Ayn Rand once said, “How do you know we live in an orderly universe? How many other you universes do you know of you can use as a basis for comparison?”

That is very easy to explain if you know a bit of quantum mechanics. Read up on uncertainty principle, vacuum energy, pair creation and annihilation. That together with thermodynamic and statistical concepts like entropy and arrow of time can result in a complex universe out of basically nothing. It might just take an incomprehensibly long period of time.

Because they believe in supernatural bullshit so their “explanations” are wrong.

‘Supernatural’ is just stuff we do not understand yet. Supernatural beings, or gods, would be some very advanced civilization, who perhaps achieved this level on their own or somehow were “born” into this power, never the less they are still “aliens” from Astrophysics point of view.

But it’s quite likely we would just waltz right in and take their resources without asking them,

I’ve heard that argument a lot of times and its a 100% Hollywood bullshit.
Looting an inhabited planet makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever.
Imagine you’re a commander of a fleet of starships, looking for resources. You enter a new star system looking for stuff to mine. The FIRST thing you encounter is a mind bogglingly huge asteroid cloud surrounding the star-system, with an order of magnitude more resources than all the planets in it COMBINED, all of it already hanging in Zero Gravity and conveniently broken into manageable chunks, than can be towed directly to the space-factory. It contains the entire table of elements, including a huge % of Iron , rare metals and water ice.

There is no way you would be looting a planet unless you literally want to waste money and energy fighting the gravity well, just so you could be Evil (TM).

There is no way you would be looting a planet unless you literally want to waste money and energy fighting the gravity well, just so you could be Evil (TM).

It depends. Do you just want to get the stuff and then get out, or do you want to build a local base / colony? In the second case you want to get the stuff close to the base so if you build a base on an asteroid you want to mine on that asteroid, if you want to build a base on a planet you want to mine stuff on that planet.

But they might be capturing aliens to study them and their technology regardless…

‘Supernatural’ is just stuff we do not understand yet. Supernatural beings, or gods, would be some very advanced civilization, who perhaps achieved this level on their own or somehow were “born” into this power, never the less they are still “aliens” from Astrophysics point of view.

In order for this stuff to be understood, that stuff has to exist in the first place. That’s the whole point. Until we get some initial clue that some of this stuff is even real, there’s no need (<= key point here) for this stuff to even exist so we can explain reality. We don’t need a God or a mega advanced civilization to explain the things we still can’t explain.

That’s the whole point. As I said before to Caleb: reality doesn’t give a fuck. It just is, regardless of whether it makes sense to us, or if we like it or not. It owns us nothing.

This is what I’m critizing, the “fill the gaps with some idea or concept that makes me feel better”. Hey, it’s ok to just say: we don’t know. They will eventually be filled as always since we started to look at the world for what it is, not for what we would like it to be, aka science.

That’s the whole point. As I said before to Caleb: reality doesn’t give a fuck. It just is, regardless of whether it makes sense to us, or if we like it or not. It owns us nothing.

This is what I’m critizing, the “fill the gaps with some idea or concept that makes me feel better”. Hey, it’s ok to just say: we don’t know. They will eventually be filled as always since we started to look at the world for what it is, not for what we would like it to be, aka science.

There is a very serious group of thought both in ancient philosophy and modern quantum physics that an observer is needed. The universe exists by being observed. I guess this is a reverse argument. If you dont see it / experience it, does it matter what is / isnt out there? This is not just a philosophical construct, it has serious practical implications as well: if part of the universe is expanding so fast we are not able to communicate with that part of the universe in any way never mind go there it is for practical purposes as if it did not exist for us. It does not really make any practical difference whether there are aliens there or not therefore.

if part of the universe is expanding so fast we are not able to communicate with that part of the universe in any way never mind go there it is for practical purposes as if it did not exist for us. It does not really make any practical difference whether there are aliens there or not therefore.

It depends. The expansion of the universe is (afaik) a fact. So even if we can not communicate to this part of the universe or travel there, it certainly exists and we need it to explain reality. It is a real piece of the puzzle.

About the aliens? For now, we don’t need aliens to explain a single thing and at the same time there’s no clue that aliens exist, so for all intents and purposes, yes it does not make a difference.

It depends. The expansion of the universe is (afaik) a fact. So even if we can not communicate to this part of the universe or travel there, it certainly exists and we need it to explain reality. It is a real piece of the puzzle.

Yes that is true. But it also depends on how you look at it. If we say there are other universes, other place, where things are different but you can go there or exchange any information with them it makes no difference to anything here. In this case of hyper fast expansion that part of the universe is so called “fully casually separated”. The word casual here refers to causality in relativity. It means its for all practical purposes a separate universe to the point its existence (or non existence) makes no difference to ours.

About the aliens? For now, we don’t need aliens to explain a single thing and at the same time there’s no clue that aliens exist, so for all intents and purposes, yes it does not make a difference.

Yes its true it makes no difference. Except if we are talking about simulated reality then obviously someone created the simulation. In a way that is no different to a religion’s God creating the universe or super advanced alien gods creating a new universe based on their specifications. A sub reality that is built as layer on top of an existing reality as in a simulation is still a full universe of its own. Either way this is some kind of Deus Ex Machina way to explain stuff we dont know. I see no difference therefore between the simulation theory, the super advanced aliens or religious creationism.

It means its for all practical purposes a separate universe to the point its existence (or non existence) makes no difference to ours.

From a practical point of view, yes.

I see no difference therefore between the simulation theory, the super advanced aliens or religious creationism.

That’s my point, too. From a strictly logical point of view, those three concepts are one and the same. But it is true that at least the aliens and the simulation theory make a liiiiiiitle more sense than the religious tales.

But it is true that at least the aliens and the simulation theory make a liiiiiiitle more sense than the religious tales.

How? If tomorrow I get my hands on some knowledge and tech to create a new universe and life in it based on my own specifications I would be a god to those beings and can start my own religion there. You could argue thats not exactly the same thing but it would be indistinguishable for them. It would probably take quite a while before they would reach the capacity to understand the difference. Q.E.D.

Scientist: The God hypothesis is unfalsifiable and is therefore not worth looking into at all.

As for the Fermi paradox, the anthropic principle seems to be the most Occam-razor-friendly solution. Take a huge universe (we can’t see past the edge of so-called observable universe because it expands away faster than light, but there’s no reason to think anything is different beyond the edge), toss everything at random, and on large enough scales everything can happen, including emergence of sentient life. Such life, being extremely rare, would then wonder why it can’t see more life around.

Incorrect. An atheist does not “believe there is no god”. The same way there is no need to believe “there is no Gandalf” or that “The Earth is not flat”. You don’t need to put the effort to believe in the non-existence of things.

This is the fallacy of trying to make an atheist the “reverse believer” of a deist. As I said before, an atheist does not believe.

Read up on uncertainty principle, vacuum energy, pair creation and annihilation. That together with thermodynamic and statistical concepts like entropy and arrow of time can result in a complex universe out of basically nothing.

Obviously I’m not going to take the time out of my schedule to read all of that crap. If your argument is that anything is possible given an extreme amount of time, then you need to prove existence has been around for quadrillions of quadrillions of years, since that’s how much time it would require for 100 monkeys randomly banging on keyboards to come up with the works of Shakespeare.

Could 100 monkeys come up with Shakespeare given enough time? Certainly possible, but again, I just don’t buy it.

Hey, it’s ok to just say: we don’t know.

That’s exactly what I’m saying. But when some atheists say, “There IS no god and I’m sure!” that’s not what they’re doing.

I see no difference therefore between the simulation theory, the super advanced aliens or religious creationism.

That’s my point, too. From a strictly logical point of view, those three concepts are one and the same.

That’s exactly what I’m saying. But when some atheists say, “There IS no god and I’m sure!” that’s not what they’re doing.

They are just using logic with no limitation and zero emotional bias.

“There is no Donald Duck and I’m sure of it”.

“There is no Gandalf the Grey and I’m sure of it”.

“There is no God and I’m sure of it”.

“Horoscopes doesn’t work and I’m sure of it”.

These four concepts are completely human inventions, there’s zero proof of their existence and there’s no need for any of them to exist in order to explain reality.

Is there really a difference between these four sentences?

If your argument is that anything is possible given an extreme amount of time, then you need to prove existence has been around for quadrillions of quadrillions of years, since that’s how much time it would require for 100 monkeys randomly banging on keyboards to come up with the works of Shakespeare.

That’s creationism 101. Translated = “reality is so overwhelmingly complex that it makes me feel small therefore I feel better thinking there’s something else pulling the strings”. Well, you don’t need quadrillions of years, the universe is 13 billion and it seems it’s been more than enough. The funny thing is, no human could even begin to imagine how much time 13 billion years really is. Life on this planet is “only” 3-4 billion years old and here we are, debating about our own existence.

Incorrect. Emotional bias is exactly what they’re doing. Logic would be “I don’t believe there’s a god, but there’s no way to know for sure.” Emotion is saying, “There is no god, and I know for sure!!!”

“There is no Donald Duck and I’m sure of it”.

“There is no God and I’m sure of it”.

Completely invalid comparison, and I think you know that. The existence of Donald Duck would conflict with our basic scientific understanding of reality, but the existence of god or a cosmic creator would not. There is nothing anyone could present as any evidence whatsoever of Donald Duck actually existing outside of a tv or computer screen, which is not 100% true of someone saying god / creator exists or existed. And so on.

I will repeat that I don’t believe in god. But like with left/right politics, just because the left is wrong doesn’t mean the right is right; same goes for Christians and hardcore atheists.

That is not my contention and isn’t even remotely close to what I said. Again you keep mistaking me for a Christian or something. You’re talking to a guy who doesn’t believe in a Judaeo/Christian god at all and thinks religion is bullshit.

Well, you don’t need quadrillions of years

How do you know?

the universe is 13 billion and it seems it’s been more than enough

I’m talking about the creation of the universe 13 billion years ago, not now. How long did whatever existed before the universe exist? How did our universe come into being? Why did it come into being? You have no idea, just like I have no idea. And that’s my point.

The funny thing is, no human could even begin to imagine how much time 13 billion years really is. Life on this planet is “only” 3-4 billion years old and here we are, debating about our own existence.

Okay, then stop farting around and say it: Are you 100% positive the universe was not created by god or a god-like creator or creators? Yes or no? (And if your answer is yes, you’d better be ready to defend your answer.)

The object of the sentence is different. That aside, no, in each case it is a logical fallacy, as it is not possible to be sure of it. One can only say there is not enough reasonable evidence to support these.

Actually there is a slight caveat with the horoscope example. It does often work but for a completely different reason than people think. Its based on a psychological effect (forgot the name) where you say some random stuff that applies to a lot of people but is worded in a way that sounds personalized. I have used this technique extensively in online dating, it helps to make the girls feel like we know each other quicker or I am good at judging them etc, even though I was just copy and pasting.

Life on this planet is “only” 3-4 billion years old and here we are, debating about our own existence.

And most of that time the “life” was pool of slime. I recall a documentary from when I was a child which said that if the Earth history (just Earth, not the universe…) was one day, then entire human history happened in the last 5 minutes before midnight.

Indeed the problem with creationism is who created the creator? At some point we are back to the idea that somehow something must have come out of nothing, except now we live in a time where science says that something out of nothing is possible, even though extremely unlikely. So in the end there is only one theory: something came out of nothing after a very long period of time. All the other theories like God or simulation require still another theory to explain what happened before that and we are back at square 1.

Mh… Both Donald Duck and God are nothing but tale characters (yeah, I know you are not religious but remember where the concept of God comes from). The difference between them is that God, as a character, is all mighty, all powerful and the sole responsible of the existence of everything… because we say so. Of course God doesn’t conflict with any scientific knowledge so far. Same as the Living Tribunal by Marvel.

How long did whatever existed before the universe exist?

How long? Literally, nothing. Before the Big Bang, space and time were not even a thing. Unfortunately, science only says things starting from 10−43 seconds after the Big Bang.

You have no idea, just like I have no idea. And that’s my point.

Well, we both have no idea, yes. But after that you say:

Okay, are you 100% positive the universe was not created by god or a god-like creator or creators? Yes or no? (And if your answer is yes, you’d better be ready to defend your answer.)

As as said before, who claims that there is something else (whatever that is) have the responsibility to explain why. And that is a huge problem, because after explaining what that is…. you have to explain what or who created that entity. Because, those creators must come from somewhere, too, right?

See where I’m going? Do you really, honestly, 100% need to apply a “deus ex machina” to c0mplete the puzzle?

Like you, I’m not religious at all (obviously). Maybe the only difference is that I feel a little more confortable with the concept of “shit, reality is a bitch that doesn’t make sense” (and hell, I agree with this). The more we know, the more we realize we have no idea yet.

As as said before, who claims that there is something else (whatever that is) have the responsibility to explain why. And that is a huge problem, because after explaining what that is…. you have to explain what or who created that entity. Because, those creators must come from somewhere, too, right?

See where I’m going? Do you really, honestly, 100% need to apply a “deus ex machina” to c0mplete the puzzle?

Like you, I’m not religious at all (obviously). Maybe the only difference is that I feel a little more confortable with the concept of “shit, reality is a bitch that doesn’t make sense” (and hell, I agree with this). The more we know, the more we realize we have no idea yet.

Fortunately, we don’t need to worry about this.

You just dodged my question. I’ll try one more time, and if you dodge the question again, you’ve pretty much shown your position.

I am not stating any god exists. I’m saying I have no idea. Now, are you 100% positive the universe was not created by god or a god-like creator or creators? Yes or no? (And if your answer is yes, you’d better be ready to defend your answer.)

Do you think gravitational waves exist? Yes or no? Well 10 years ago when we didn’t know it made sense for both yes and no to justify the answer. Because we have a starting point: previous knowledge. But with something so ridiculously high level as “who pressed the play button that started it all” is absolutely unfair to ask for an explanation of why they don’t exist.

That why it’s perfectly fair to say god does not exist and get away with it. So far, it’s been a safe bet to say it. Still not a single clue.

That why it’s perfectly fair to say god does not exist and get away with it. So far, it’s been a safe bet to say it. Still not a single clue.

Funny thing is when you ask someone to explain or define what they mean by god its either always something completely different even within the same official religion or they just have no clue. For example when you and Caleb say you dont believe in god, what do you mean? The mainstream Christian idea of God or the God from Kabalah? Both are equally Judo/Christian, but they are completely different ideas, in the second case it is not even a single entity.

Here is a little mind fuck on the topic:
Imagine there is a god who was not created by anyone else because this god always existed and then this god created the universe… except that is only what this god thinks, this god was created by some other more powerful being or beings who made it impossible for the god to know otherwise, in fact this god has no reason to even ever think there is anything else or that there ever was. Never the less the god was still created by someone or something else.

In the end it always come back to the same age old paradox that at some point something must have come out of nothing.
Except now modern science says it is actually possible for something to come out of nothing. But not only modern science. This is also the idea in Buddhism, and, it is also seen in some polytheistic religions. I recall Greek mythology had something like that at the beginning there was emptiness and out of that came chaos, then the archetypes and later gods came out of that.

So god or no god, makes no difference. In the end only a single theory has been presented here. I dare someone to come up with something else that does not require something coming out of nothing at the VERY start.

For example when you and Caleb say you dont believe in god, what do you mean?

I think we are not debating a specific version of god. Just the concept of a generic supernatural entity. Doesn’t matter which one.

Never the less the god was still created by someone or something else.

Speaking of mind fucks: if something like god exists then newsflash: it ain’t a god but just a natural phenomena of reality, like black holes, stars or volcanos. Which means a supernatural entity is by definition, impossible to exist. The moment it exists, it becomes reality and therefore yet another piece of the existence.

Speaking of mind fucks: if something like god exists then newsflash: it ain’t a god but just a natural phenomena of reality, like black holes, stars or volcanos. Which means a supernatural entity is by definition, impossible to exist. The moment it exists, it becomes reality and therefore yet another piece of the existence.

Good one, but… supernatural… super natural. Its something that is natural, but rare or unusual or unexplained. So its still a natural phenomena.

I think we are not debating a specific version of god. Just the concept of a generic supernatural entity. Doesn’t matter which one.

I guess it does make quite a lot of difference. The flavour of the discussion is changed totally. If the universe was created by a single conscious and self aware entity as one extreme is one thing but if you think that god is something that is simply a phenomena or property of space like gravity as another extreme then its totally different.

If the universe was created by a single conscious and self aware entity as one extreme is one thing but if you think that god is something that is simply a phenomena or property of space like gravity as another extreme then its totally different.

In the second case it’s called physics so it’s got nothing to do with the standard concept of god.

I’ve never decided if I identified as an atheist or an agnostic. I tend to agree with Bertrand Russell that if he was talking to a regular Christian, it would be more honest of him to say he was an atheist, because he was exactly what that person would call an atheist: someone who thinks the traditional big guy from the sacred books is more or less as plausible as Santa Claus – even though philosophically, he was an agnostic. I’m much closer to atheism when it comes to traditional religion because we have robust accounts of how the phenomenon is a human invention where zero supernatural forces are required to intervene. Similarly, I reject intelligent design in biology because again, darwinian selection and the broader modern evolutionary theory provides a much more satisfying account that makes that stuff redundant (to say nothing of the fact that YET AGAIN, it just pushes the problem further since you need to explain what designed the designer). I’m closer to strict agnosticism when it comes to the so-called fine-tuning of the universe and “ultimate causes” in general, but I still lean towards dismissal of the supernatural because of a very simple reason: the lesson of modern rationality is that it is useless and circular to explain the existence of a designing mind like ours by invoking ANOTHER designing mind at the start of the causal chain. Therefore, even if God exists, it is rationally and scientifically a useless hypothesis for lazy minds, it leads nowhere, because it literally puts you back on square one, when you started wondering why it is that something as complex and ineffable as you are exists. End of story.

I also find the alleged symmetry between atheism and religious belief erroneous. Extreme ‘evangelical’ atheism is like traditional religion, so the normal version of the latter matches the extreme version of the former. It’s too easy to narrow down the definition of atheism to make it more vulnerable to criticism, but atheism doesn’t only include a 100% certitude, while the vast majority of traditional believers DO have a 100% certitude and will say it to you. Sure, more refined theologians can talk at length about the nature of doubt, belief and certitude etc, but the ratios aren’t even close to those among atheists.

I knew damn well the very second I realized I was no longer sure of the core beliefs I was raised under that I had officially dropped out of the religion (I had dropped many secondary beliefs before that though), even though I then took several years to become fully convinced that religions were man-made: the ordinary religious believer believes absolutely 100%, or he isn’t one. He may have moments of doubt, but those are thoughts he actively resists, erases and asks forgiveness for, and identifies with those of his mental states that are devoid of doubt. Whereas the ordinary atheist can easily admit that he’s only 99 or 90% sure that there are no gods, and still clearly count as an atheist. Atheism is dismissal of one or many or all conceptions of a deity; it includes absolute certitude of their nonexistence but the common denominator is just a clear dismissal. There is no symmetry with religion. I would argue that it’s religion that created a whole new category of degrees of certitude, and that it’s unfair to stick it on atheism because just like I can “dismiss” the chances of a lynx fighting a lion, I should be able to dismiss something and insist I’m not an agnostic without being forced to choose between claiming 100% certitude that the lynx will lose OR withdraw. I can simply think the lynx’s chances are laughable, and that’s not agnosticism.

I also think we might just need to accept that definitions can vary and overlap. OTOH, agnosticism doesn’t necessarily mean you think it’s 50-50: it could simply designate a general state of mind of being undecided and of thinking that the whole thing is too unknowable for any quantifible probability. One would say “If I had to describe my state of mind with a percentage, then I’d say 50%, but it doesn’t describe any mathematical probability I believe in”. And OTOH, atheism itself could just mean you’re technically an agnostic but you think God is just a much more worthless hypothesis than other ones you’re agnostic about, such as “I’m agnostic about string theory”: you’d say that both are unproven and have a problem of currently lacking falsifiablity, but that “I think the universe was created by a mind, because I’m so stuck in my solipsism that I think the root cause of everything absolutely has to have something in common with me except bigger, ie some kind of designer, some kind of big daddy” is immensely more mediocre than the slow, methodical work of fundamental physics at unraveling the mysteries of the big bang or multiverse etc, even if that path never leads to the ultimate cause.

I also think that perpetually moving the goalposts to make one’s version of a deity harder to dismiss is just a dishonest game. Belief in God is belief there’s some kind of person, some kind of mind/conscious entity at the root of it all – even if it’s very different from a human mind, infinitely wiser or whatever. If your version has been so completely stripped of any ‘personhood’ that it’s barely distinguishable from vague pantheist / first principle / prime mover talk, then you’re not talking about a deity, and you’re in good company with atheist Platonists who think the bedrock of reality is made of Platonic Archetypes. Quote by physicist Brian Greene:

If you don’t view God as the reservoir of temporary answers to issues we haven’t solved scientifically, but rather as some overarching structure within which science takes place, and if that makes you happy and satisfied, so be it. I don’t see the need for that; others do.

The existence of Donald Duck would conflict with our basic scientific understanding of reality, but the existence of god or a cosmic creator would not.

That’s exactly the problem: the existence of a god does not contradict anything, nor does its nonexistence contradict anything. Science can’t ever prove anything, and if it can’t disprove something either, then that something is meaningless from the scientific point of view.

I also think that perpetually moving the goalposts to make one’s version of a deity harder to dismiss is just a dishonest game. Belief in God is belief there’s some kind of person, some kind of mind/conscious entity at the root of it all – even if it’s very different from a human mind, infinitely wiser or whatever. If your version has been so completely stripped of any ‘personhood’ that it’s barely distinguishable from vague pantheist / first principle / prime mover talk, then you’re not talking about a deity, and you’re in good company with atheist Platonists who think the bedrock of reality is made of Platonic Archetypes.

Personification of natural phenomena and of unmoving objects has always been around. In many languages many things that do not correspond to men or women have he/she labels attached to them. In a way its the same thing.

For we the simulation hypothesis doesn’t explain shit. Because eventhen if it’s correct, you’d still have to figure out what the physical universe that is hosting the simulation is all about anyways… It’s just displacing the problem.

Everyone likes to think we’d be kind and benevolent like Starfleet, but I don’t think so. I think we’d be much more close to how humans were portrayed in Avatar.

The vast majority of humans are eating annimal products. So unless humanity evolved towards veganism, not only would we obviouly steal their resources and destroy their environment, displace them, enslave them, without they consent as we already do on earth, but also would we breed them, concentrate them in factories, juice their milk, eat their eggs, kill them on an industialised scale eat them, make stuffs with their skin and bones or teeth, etc…

I don’t buy into the big bang theory. I aw pretty sure it will soon be regarded as a primitive oversimplistic theory.

Look up quantum gravity theories, such as loop quantum gravity. Or Sir Roger Penrose Aeons. I am pretty sure the space-time fabric is constantly “re-cycling itself” at the following “event horizons” : the plank scale, and the “surface of black holes” (the closest of which is by the way at the center our our galaxy covered by a huge acretion surface making it look like a huge star, I don’t know if you have ever thought about that. Space time, matter and rays are all collapsing and being created right there at every moment), through both the fenomena of on one hond the hawking radiation, and on the other hand the inescapoble gravitational pull.

As for the question of, is there a God or not, there is clealy no white bearded “Lord” watching over us. But when you consider “God” is a panentheistic concept, as in Everything including all consciouness(es) space and time is within God, then the question is purely semantics. Complementary to the concept of “God”, the Hinduist and Buddhist central concept of “samsara” (over simplified as “the cycle of life and death” in the same way God is oversimplified as a omnicient “Lord”/fatherly figure), along with peripheral concepts of impermanence, Brahman and Atman, help getting out of the illusory paradox and dual thinking of “is there a God or not?” and “was the universe created by a God”. These questions are the equivalent of seeing everything black ond white and therefore debating whether something red is black or white.

We could be the only sentient beings in our galaxy? Yes. But think about it: our galaxy is 100k-180k light years wide. We developed radio technology about 100-150 years ago. This, in terms of our own galaxy size + the speed of light, is just an instant. In terms of the entire universe, is less than nothing. Our waves have just reached nearby stars.

Those waves of ours 150 light years out are impossibly faded. Even a laser pointed at the moon becomes over one kilometer wide. Think about what a large TV antenna you need just need to see a broadcast from 50 miles away. For those of you with a science background, radio waves degrade proportional to the cube of the distance.

I doubt our best radio dishes could detect our own 150 light year signals. We are not going to detect anything or be detected until star trek space travel is invented. Off topic, but star trek inventions violate every law of physics, so this probably never happens.

I doubt our best radio dishes could detect our own 150 light year signals. We are not going to detect anything or be detected until star trek space travel is invented.

And that doesn’t take into account interference from natural radiation in space and absorption by space dust. Its probably indistinguishable from background noise already after less than 150 ly.

Answer, we could only detect our own TV signals about 1 light year away. And there are no other stars that close. So it is virtually hopeless that we and ET will ever find each other that way.

Yes, and still there is the thing that it takes 1 year to travel 1 light year. Lets say some other civilisation started broadcasting 1000 years ago (more advanced than us sooner), then the signal, even if it could still be strong enough after all that time and distance would make a 1000 light year radius around their planet. It is still quite likely we are not within that bubble even if there would be lots of life in the galaxy.

Now, if we did detect such a signal tomorrow, that signal is 1000 years old. Those aliens might be dead by now for all we know.

Yes and no. One day when we are long gone, thousands or millions of years in the future and even Earth is gone someone else might recover this.

On the other hand its not a good idea to broadcast information about us to space. We dont know what else is out there. If they are advanced enough to understand it AND to come to us, do we really want to take the chances that they are going to be benevolent?

Based solely on the total amount of comments and overall engagements, I think this kind of post that your viewers are more preferred, Caleb.

Civilizations can be visible from many light years away, if they harness their star’s energy with a swarm of billions of satellites (Dyson swarm). The star will glow in infrared and be recognizeable as a megastructure from very far away. Such civilizations have such huge amounts of resources at their disposal that they could monitor every single star in their galaxy, whether by sending probes or building gigantic space telescopes. No inferior civ can hide from them; as far as we are concerned, the cat’s out of the bag if there are indeed hidden, more advanced aliens out there; it is useless to try to stop broadcasting radio signals. The only aliens who cannot have detected us yet are those that aren’t a threat in the first place.
Check out the channel I linked to at the end of my first comment, it covers this is in incredible detail.

Civilizations can be visible from many light years away, if they harness their star’s energy with a swarm of billions of satellites (Dyson swarm). The star will glow in infrared and be recognizeable as a megastructure from very far away. Such civilizations have such huge amounts of resources at their disposal that they could monitor every single star in their galaxy, whether by sending probes or building gigantic space telescopes. No inferior civ can hide from them; as far as we are concerned, the cat’s out of the bag if there are indeed hidden, more advanced aliens out there; it is useless to try to stop broadcasting radio signals. The only aliens who cannot have detected us yet are those that aren’t a threat in the first place.

Its all based on assumptions that the civilisations are the same and follow similar development path and technology. There can be civilisations that are different in ways we cannot imagine. Also civilisations can be much more advanced in some aspects than us but less in other aspects, therefore your argument is has logical fallacies.

Its all based on assumptions that the civilisations are the same and follow similar development path and technology. There can be civilisations that are different in ways we cannot imagine. Also civilisations can be much more advanced in some aspects than us but less in other aspects, therefore your argument is has logical fallacies.

Slow down, dude, and go watch the channel. The argument doesn’t rely at all on all civs following the same path, or most of them, or even a percent of them. If just one follows that path, it can easily control a vast number of solar systems, so it doesn’t matter that it was an outlier. I’m not pursuing this discussion further; there’s no substitute for the goldmine of arguments on the channel itself. If you find the time to binge-watch it, I promise you that your mind will be blown.

“Obviously I’m not going to take the time out of my schedule to read all of that crap. If your argument is that anything is possible given an extreme amount of time, then you need to prove existence has been around for quadrillions of quadrillions of years, since that’s how much time it would require for 100 monkeys randomly banging on keyboards to come up with the works of Shakespeare.”

Let me recommend just one delicious book, “Sync” by Steven Strogatz. I always think of this book when defending a libertarian position on a debate because it helps me advance the notion that we don’t need centralized economies. The takeaway is that order SPONTANEOUSLY emerges from chaos everywhere in the universe (life is just a glorified form of order).

As a side note, the monkey argument is ridiculous because they could type quadrillions new texts (essays, novels, plays, whatever) you just can’t imagine, in addition to the ones we already know but aren’t Shakespeare. Which brings us back to the unfathomability of life forms different from ours, a big problem when looking for them.